I suspect I'm revealing my ignorance

[conuly]

I've never read The Three Musketeers and am mostly familiar with them from their many many many pop-culture incarnations. If they're musketeers, though... why are they associated with swashbuckling swordfights? Shouldn't they be associated with, um, muskets?

Comments

[snakeling]

Well, Dumas never let historic realism get in the way of good storytelling :D

At the beginning of the novel, d'Artagnan meets all three musketeers (Athos, Portos, and Aramis), offends them, and ends up in three separate duels, to be fought with a sword, of course (it's a bit early for pistol duels). The duels themselves never happen, IIRC, because everyone meet up, realise they know each other, and then they're overrun with a common enemy and starts fighting them (still with a sword).

There are a number of other epic swordfights, both in this one and in the two sequels. And swordfights look good on film, so...

It's a fun book, if you want to read it. I also love The Count of Monte-Cristo, though it's darker :)

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Read the book. No, really, read the book. In the original if possible, but you'll love it even in translation.
Part of the reason is to do with the technology of the time. A musket is a very effective weapon at distance, but it takes an age to load, and while you're doing that (or having someone do it for you - one purpose of a servant is to load the spare gun while you're firing this one), the enemy can run into sword range. At this point, it's a good idea to know what you're doing with sharp pointy objects, or to be very good at thumping people round the head with what is now a rather unwieldy club.
Let me grab a free copy off Amazon and drop it to Kindle... yes, chapter 47, "the Council of the Musketeers" will give you a lot more in the way of muskets than is normally found in films.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Muskets weren't even that effective at a distance, unless one had a whole company of guys firing en masses at another company of guys. The Three Musketeers is set in the time of Cardinal Richelieu, the early 17th century, and muskets, having as yet no rifling in the barrel, were inaccurate as well as slow. Hardly a fitting weapon for hot-headed and romantic personal combat; a duel at 20 paces could take all morning before somebody finally scored a hit.
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[conuly]

My kind of duel.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

No, srsly, it'd be like watching golf.

[conuly]

But with fewer deaths, so that's a plus.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Fewer deaths than golf?!

I'm not sure that that would technically be considered a 'plus' for a style of duelling. In fact, I'm not sure that a style of duelling that resulted in fewer deaths than golf would technically be considered 'duelling'.

.

[conuly]

But who cleans up the blood?